When peristaltic roller pumps are used, for example, for pumping blood, the blood pipe may suffer damage caused by the pipe being squeezed and twisted as it is loaded and unloaded into and out of the pumphead. This damage may cause the contamination or loss of the blood being pumped, as well as the destruction of the pipe.
Accordingly, a pumphead has been sought which enables easy loading and unloading of a pipe into the pumphead with the minimum amount of stress being brought to bear on the pipe, but which exerts the minimum necessary amount of force on the pipe during pumping.